Sunday, September 18, 2011

Vanquisher became Vanquished-Part 1-Hundreds are Hot

This was regarded to be the most high-profile series since the world cup.ICC even said they had shifted the venue of ICC awards from colombo to london because of this series.ESPN telecasted ads in which Flintoffisque type of person boasts how they tied with the champions and they were also world champions.Ravi Shastri Slammed England by saying that the oppositition were never world no 1and they do not have the rights to speak ill about bcci.Several Players were rested for West Indies tour because of the Importance this series had.And to top it all , a hundredth hundred was at stake throughout the series.

INDIA VS ENGLAND

Photo Courtesy:Cricinfo

The trouble started for India even before they boarded the plane,sehwag would miss the first 2 tests and the trouble just got alleviated on the first day of Lord's Test when India's prime,goto bowler Zaheer Khan was injured and was informed he could not take part further in the series.India lost their best swing bowler in the first day of the tour and from that day on the momentum swung towards England.The out of form Kevin Pietersen scored a double hundred after being troubled by Zaheer Khan for most of the first day.England posted a mammoth total of 474/8 declare and India succumbing to the speed and swing of england bowlers for 286,just avoiding the follow-on because of the efforts of the Mr Dependable century(his first in the mecca of cricket).While indian bowlers did come back strongly to reduce england to 6-107,England found an heroes in Prior and Broad to post a target of 458.India ended the day at 80-1 with Dravid and Laxman at the crease and Rain predicted for the 5th day ,India would have had hopes of escape similar to the one 4 years ago when dhoni and sreeshanth batted out and bad light stopping play .India were 142-4 at lunch ,with Tendulkar and raina in crease and escape route still present.Tendulkar fell soon after lunch and his ambitions of his first century at Lords just vanished.India survived till Tea session with five wickets in hand but once dhoni fell soon after Tea,Raina was left to fight alongside the tailenders who were not able to handle the swing and India lost by 196 Runs.

With India having a track record of bouncing back from the series 1-0 down,the fans did not lose hope.And the hopes were heightened when india bundled out england for 221 and were imposing position at 267-4 on day 2 post tea session.But everytjing changed when england took the new ball and india lost theiir next 6 wickets for 20 runs and England got the much needed boost and they never looked back .They savaged the indian bowling ,and posted a huge total of 544 on board leaving India a gargantuan task of chasing 458 in fourth innings.The pitch which had behaved like a flat track when England batted ,started to do all the tricks what English bowlers aimed at the Indians and except for Tendulkar's 56,India did not have any nerves to put up a fight were bowled out for 158 runs by the end of the days play.